Ballard Tattoo Artists

Piercing Artists

Ballard Gallery

Appointments

We first recommend stopping by our shop in Ballard to take a look around and see the artists’ portfolios. If you’d like you can schedule a consultation with the artist of your choice (free of charge). Consultations are short so be sure to bring in any reference, and have ideas together to make the most of the time. Or you can put down a deposit to get a drawing started for you (the deposit goes towards your tattoo cost) then schedule your appointment time.

If this process does not work for you, you can always call the Ballard shop to make an appointment by using your credit card for the deposit amount (we accept Visa and MasterCard). Deposits are $50 for most pieces, and $100 for pieces that will take over two hours. We do not charge for custom drawings, we just require the deposit to start on them. Deposits are non-refundable. All deposits and appointments must be made over the phone or in person. Sorry, no online scheduling.

1. Our Shop minimum is $100.00. A tattoo the size of a coin, or a small simple outline with no shading is usually considered a shop minimum tattoo. 2. Tattoos that take a few hours or less are usually quoted outright by the artist. 3. Larger tattoos (including multiple session pieces) are based on an hourly rate of $175. It’s fairly common for a custom tattoo to take 2 hours, but may cost $350 if that’s the price it was quoted at. On the other hand, a four hour tattoo done at our hourly rate would only cost $700. To use an analogy: buying a dozen roses is cheaper than buying just one, and the artist’s drawing and prep time should be taken into consideration, as we do not charge for these things. If one thinks of needles as different styles of paint brushes, two different tattoos may be the same size and take the same amount of time to complete, but one may require multiple paint brushes to get a specific effect. This requires more set up/prep time, and the paint brushes (tattoo needles) are single use, resulting in a slightly higher cost in materials.

Safety

We at Slave to the Needle care a great deal about the physical well being of our clientele; therefore, we take the following precautions to insure your safety:

All needles used in the tattoo/piercing process are disposed of after each use. Needles are never used on more than one customer under any circumstances. These needles are sterilized before use and remain in a sealed sterile pouch until the time of use.

Any items that aren’t disposable (hard tools) go through a three step process between every use:

Step one: Tools are disinfected and thoroughly scrubbed and rinsed.Step two: Tools are put through an ultrasonic cleaning cycle, thoroughly rinsed and dried.Step three: Tools are placed in special pouches and run through a full cycle in a laboratory tested autoclave sterilizer. The tools are then properly stored until the time of their use.

The pigments used in tattooing are also potential sources of contamination and therefore Slave to the Needle NEVER reuses tattoo pigments. Each tattoo customer gets their own pigments poured into disposable caps. At the end of the tattoo, any leftover pigments are disposed of along with their caps.

We use a Midmark M11 & M9 and a Scican Statim 2000 for autoclave sterilizers. It sterilizes with a combination of heat, steam, pressure and time to render the items inside sterile (free of living organisms). We adhere to the highest standards of autoclave testing. Our machine is spore tested weekly by an outside lab to ensure that it is working properly.

Spores are the hardest and most resistant particles to destroy, therefore, tests are done to determine the presence of spore growth in a test load. We have been spore testing since 1995.